Easy comebacks ?

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians

The people who wrote the Bible didn't know about "lesbians" because the category didn't exist yet. They knew that there was same-sex love among women, though.

The term "lesbian" is a 20th century invention, but it's based in the ancient world. Sappho, the female poet who wrote about loving women, came from the island of Lesbos. The term (despite complaints from real people who still live on the island) became a kind of euphemism. Sappho was widely known; Plato refers to her as an already ancient classical writer. It's a matter of conjecture how much the authors of the New Testament knew of classical Greek thought. Paul, as an educated man and a Roman citizen, is likely to have known this. 

The term "homosexual," also, is a recent invention, from the 19th century. People in the past didn't think that way. The idea that people have orientations, that same-sex attraction is something to condemn, is recent. So there was no reason for the authors of the Bible to condemn women who like going to bed with women.

What the Bible condemns isn't homosexual attraction, in either men or women. This wasn't an issue. What it condemns is certain acts. And this is entirely in keeping with Roman thinking of the time. 

It was accepted as normal that a Roman man would have the right to fuck his male slaves, and do it for pleasure. Men penetrating men was not a problem. People looked down on those men who 1) allowed themselves to get fucked by men, and 2) enjoyed it. This is because respectable men were expected to be active not passive. The active partner, even if he's fucking a man, is not considered abnormal or bad. (And it was the same for the Samurai, by the way. The tough guys had their "sword bearers" who bore more than just the sword. It was OK for the tough guys because they were in the active role.) 

If the Bible doesn't condemn female homosexuals, it's not because the authors were ignorant of their existence. It's because that wasn't what they were worried about. 

It's better not to project our own modern categories onto ancient people, and then condemn them for ignorance.

I must adit the thought has oft crossed my mind as to how the Bible would be different if its progenitors were writing to an ancient world still dominated by the classic Greeks instead of the Romans. How history would have changed had the Greeks successfully federated, say, and been able to curb the expansion of the Romans.

Thence the early 'Church fathers' would have had to face off against the many Greek Phylosophers and their schools still in full swing.

How might the early Church fare in its relations with the Spartans one wonders?

Cheers.